Policy Change in Border Control: The Schengen Visa Regime – From Security to Profitability

Since the beginning of the Schengen era, common short-term visa policy has been designed to prevent unsolicited forms of mobility and to curb the so-called migratory risk (Guild and Bigo, 2003; Infantino, 2014). However, gradual transformations of this specific border policy have raised a paradox in global mobility management. Over the last ten years, the increase in circulation of people from emerging countries – including tourists and businessmen - has led to an unprecedented boost of Schengen visa applications. Besides, there are evidence of growing convergence to neo-managerial reforms in Schengen States’ visa administrations. This new policy environment also seems to have triggered a competition between European countries to become the most attractive destination in the eyes of international visitors, although they share a Europeanized policy tool. Is there a shift from a securitisation framework to a competing market-oriented framework in Schengen visa policy, and to a broader extent in EU external border control? To explore such an empirical puzzle, I adopt a double comparative perspective. I seek to study these changes in the French and the German cases, which are the main providers of Schengen visas abroad. Then, I aim to compare implementation of Schengen visa policy by those two member States in several third countries, to bring evidence that such changes hide two-tier visa regime targeted to wealthy foreigners but even more restrictive towards unsolicited immigrants. Based on a qualitative methodology, my ongoing researches use archival work to reconstitute the socio-historic dimension of the Schengen visa, as well as semi-directed interviews with actors involved in Schengen visa regime (national administrations, EU officials and private for-profit actors – with a special focus on externalizing companies and groups of interests).